At Least We Can Laugh About Depression

I was surprised and humbled by the number of people I heard from after my last post. It’s good but also sad to know that so many people are impacted by mental health issues and mental illness (I admit I’m still grappling with the least awkward/most accurate verbiage to use when talking about this stuff). A few minutes after I shared the post on Twitter, my friend Cecilia said she’d be interested in my thoughts on this Buzzfeed piece: 13 Annoying Conversations You’ve Definitely Had If You’re Depressed. (Although I personally think the headline that Twitter pulled, 13 Real AF Situations Everyone With Depression Has Experienced was way better.)

I won’t list all 13 here but, OMG, so much truth and funny as hell to things like “When people act like you should be able to tell when someone is depressed just by looking at them” (sorry but I’m vain and also get Dysport (that’s Botox for the un-old/un-vain) so I’m pretty good at looking the same no matter what’s going on inside my head (or possibly not, if you’re reading this and you know me and are like “uh, no, I can totally tell when you’re feeling like crap.). Or, “When people want you to share, but not THAT much“–soo true. And my personal favorite “When they whip out the platitudes.” I’ve had some great ones bestowed on me over the course of my long journey with depression, including “Why can’t you just be grateful for all that you have and be happy?” or “There are so many people who would love to have a healthy baby–you should be happy!” Because those of us who live with depression just enjoy being miserable and wouldn’t choose just being happy if we could. SMH.

Speaking of platitudes, I can’t resist sharing my all-time favorite, which wasn’t really a platitude but was the best/worst/most insane comment ever uttered to any person, anywhere but especially to one so deeply drained by postpartum depression that she’d been told by her doctor that she needed to immediately wean her six-week-old baby so she could go on hardcore mood stabilizers. I visited a lactation consultant for instructions on how to wean in the most kind way both my broken self and my baby and this was her advice: “Well, you should really think twice because sometimes formula-fed babies sleep so deeply they never wake up.” Really lady? Now you know why I’ll forever have a thing against lactation consultants…sorry to those of you who are lactation consultants and aren’t this inhuman, but, seriously, in that situation I was the crazy, wrong one?

Sorry…moving on… this one is also pretty priceless, “When everyone seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of depression’s effects“–because of course you can just snap out of your funk by getting out of the house and socializing more, or going to yoga…when you can barely get out of bed….or maybe can’t at all. If only getting over depression were as easy as buying yourself a treat or treating yourself to a spa day or whatever.

Anyway, here are a few more depression funnies for you because more funny anything is always good:

What are the best/worst depression funnies you’ve endured? And bonus points for snappy retorts that hopefully helped ‘splain the reality of living with mental illness vs. misguided/just ridiculous “advice” based on misunderstanding, fear or just discomfort with the fact that mental illness is real, not just something you can wish or pamper away.